The future of food: Are there alternatives to GMOs?

By 2050, we need to figure out how to not only feed but also nourish the three billion new people who will be joining the seven billion of us who are already here on the planet. And we need to figure out how to do this as effectively, ethically and as environmentally sensibly as possible.

Since the 1980s the only celebrated solution has been GMO’s — genetically modified organisms. Genetic modification allows genes from one species to be moved into another. If anyone had never heard of GMOs — like the latest pop band — Prop 37 made GMOs a household name.

While there are many cases of GMO crops contaminating neighboring crops and there is research to support that GMOs are possibly harmful to human health, many experts say the evidence against GMOs is not conclusive and also argue that GMOs are our only pathway forward to feeding our growing population. In fact Norman Borloug — winner of the Nobel Prize for his work in curbing world hunger through The Green Revolution which were a series of innovations in genetic engineering — still believes in the promise of GMOs to feed the planet and that it is the anti-science movement that is prohibiting progress.